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Wednesday, May 9, 2012

The Romance of Hollywood

The Romance of Hollywood

by guest blogger Angela Jones

Angela on the Red Carpet
Night before the 83rd Academy Awards

I’ve had a long standing romance with, not someone, but
something. Not even something tangible
like say, clothes (although I do have a romance going with clothes, too). It’s not something you can touch, but you can
get emotionally invested as with a “real” romance. My love affair is with the movies and my “romance”
is with Hollywood. From a very young
age, I decided Hollywood was the place to be.
Movies were a huge part of my childhood, and I remember going to the
movies as early as the age of four. My
first trip to Hollywood was at the age of nine, when I decided I was going to
live at Universal Studios. A 9-year-old
can dream can’t she?

Hollywood is amazing.
It is a place of great contrasts, while a few will live their dream, many
more will watch their dreams die a slow, often painful, death. That doesn’t sound very romantic, but the
romance is in the journey and idea of following your dreams. What is it that draws so many dreamers to
this enchanted place each year? For me
it was the allure of the movies. Where
else do you have the ability to be visually transported to another time, or
another place, a place that doesn’t even have to be real? It has always been amazing to me to sit and
watch an idea become a reality on screen.
Someone thinks the words, someone else thinks the visual aspects and
someone else puts it all together and makes it real. While reading a book, you’re in control of
the vision, but in a movie, the vision is a collaboration of many different
people.

Hillary Swank (Angela in the background)
83rd Govenor's Ball

One of my favorite fictional movie locals is Tim Burton’s
version of Gotham City. The dark,
ominous streets run by crime, the taller than tall buildings, the corruption
and the hope - Batman. I don’t always
expect a happy ending, or the world being saved by a superhero, but I always
want good to triumph over evil. In
contrast to the darkness of Gotham City, one of the most visually beautiful
movies is “Amelie.” The bold colors, and
the beauty of a city like Paris make the film almost cartoon like, but you are
transported into Amelie’s world and for two hours you get to escape your world
and live in someone else’s.

I don’t get to watch movies as often as I once did, before
child and family obligations took precedence.
Nonetheless, a movie is like a rekindled love, and once you’re reunited,
you realize what you’ve missed, and you make the commitment again. This romance has been going on for most of my
life. At a young age, being an actress
was very alluring to me, but as I got older and realized what that entailed,
you actually have to perform – in front of people, I knew being behind the
scenes was more for me.

After graduating from college, I immediately moved to
Hollywood and decided I wanted to be a film publicist. After working in a few different industries,
I ended up back in my hometown of Denver, where I landed a job as, well, a film
publicist. Talk about searching for
something while it was right under your feet the whole time. There really is no place like home.

Through the last several years, I worked for another
Hollywood organization, gave birth to my daughter, and my family moved to
another state, but I still go back every year to partake in the experience. The friendships, camaraderie, and passion of
each person working the show is amazing to experience. We work long, hard hours and at the end, you
feel like you’ve been run over by a bus, but it’s all worth it. Live your passion and it won’t feel like work.